What Are Your Top Five 'Comfort' Games?

Via GameSetWatch, an article at The New Gamer talking about comfort games. These reliable, fun titles are the old favorites you consistently look to for amusement and solace after a bad gaming session, a bad day, a bad week. From the article, with the author's comfort games: "Mega Man 2 - This Capcom classic has been with me since I was a kid, and I know it like the back of my hand. I'm sure that, if blindfolded, I'd somehow intuitively be able to maneuver through the levels, but I'd much rather be able to view it in all of its 8-bit goodness and remind myself of the good times." My current top five would have to be Super Mario World, Half-Life 2, World of Warcraft, God of War, and Civilization IV. What are yours?

Comments

My Top 5 Games

[celardore]

Comfort games? Not that I would usually 'comfort' myself with video games, more often I comfort myself with indulgence :p Anyway, mine would be:

San Andreas. Sometimes I have a bad day and want to shoot stuff, beat some hookers, blow up some cars etc. Quite often I will load the game, and not do any missions. Just blow shit up for as long as possible. For fun.

C&C Generals. It's so fun to play against friends on a LAN, and it's so warming to hear a Scottish pal yell obscenities after a carefully planned assult on his base. It's also fun on skirmish mode, solo. I'll do battle against the CPU, and win. That makes me feel a little better.

Settlers. I loved this game, played it as a young teen. I played the first one to death. So did my younger sister, and occasionally I'd tell her the level password so she could try and beat it. That was fun. I remember enjoying the little swordfights.

Transport Tycoon. Sorry, I love this game. It was and is great. Tried to get Locomotion working today, but XP is crashing on it for some reason (must me some driver error, I'll work it out). Anyway, what a classic game. So much fun.

The Sims. Fine, it is basically a virtual doll house, but its mindless and easy to lose yourself in. I remember many years back, a friend and I tried 'hash cake' - my friend stared at the ceiling for hours and I played (the first) Sims. For about ten hours solid. All of the people in my house had top level jobs, not that it matters now though.

While games are engrossing and fun to play, and it is so easy to spend that many hours on them, they're not the hours you're going to remember in ten years time. The comparison with 'comfort foods' is apt though, I don't remember what food I comforted myself with two years ago either. Labelling something a 'comfort' doesn't really say anything though. We're all different, and what comforts me may completely unsettle another. For instance, I might smoke in a tense situation and in doing that I make someone uncomfortable.

Different strokes for different folks. This is just a poll rather than an article though.

Re:My Top 5 Games

[Chosen Reject]

My top 5 in no particular order are

1. UT 2004 - nothing like a fast paced shoot to kill with no goals. I especially like to play Capture the Flag or Bombing Run in the CarPark map with as many bots as possible. Nothing but fragging there.

2. Minesweeper - If I have just a few minutes, this is my standby.

3. Warcraft III - I can do single player, against bots, or online and all of them are just fun. Plus, my wife loves this game. The DotA allstars mod is really fun as well.

4. Half-Life 2 - If I just want a good shooter with a good story this is where I go.

5. Jedi Outcast - This game is my favorite. This game alone caused me to switch from Bio-Chem to Computer Science in College. Sometimes, it's good to get back to your roots.

Another fun game I love is the Trackmania series. I still think the original is better than Sunrise or Nations. Unfortunately, it has Star Force copy protection and after a year my DVD drive went nearly useless. I loved playing it, but I'm not too sure I ever will again. Do you hear that Nadeo? It was your DRM that made me not play the game. You had a big fan, and when I found out what was happening, you lost me.

Re:My Top 5 Games

[PatrickThomson]

if you loved Transport Tycoon, check out openttd, at http://www.openttd.com/. The usual random spraffing of OSS patches, multiplayer, etc.

Re:My Top 5 Games

[Lazerf4rt]

Mine are:

• Guitar Hero
• Super Mario Bros.
• Bubble Bobble
• Tetris
• Deathmatch Quake

I like games where you actually develop a motor skill by virtue of playing it. Those are the most satisfying. In each of those 5 games, I remember starting the game as an inept clod, then gradually having my fingers learn what to do, and finally becoming good at it.

I suppose that's what a lot of gamers mean when they say they play games for 'gameplay', as opposed to some of the other commonly cited reasons, like graphics or story.

away from my job

[theMerovingian]

My current top five would have to be Super Mario World, Half-Life 2, World of Warcraft, God of War, and Civilization IV.

WoW is more like my full-time job, and I play other games to relax after my 8-hour pvp shift.

My Games

[Quaoar]

1. Duke Nukem Forever
2. Daikatana
3. Superman 64
4. ET
5. Extreme Paintbrawl

Whenever I'm feeling down, I can say: "At least I don't develop video games for a living!"

Balder's Gate

[nickgrieve]

The Balder's Gate series. It is a HUGE game. And it runs great on old hardware,..

Re:Balder's Gate

[GreatBunzinni]

Personally I prefer Ballmer's Gate. It's somewhat of a cheap clone of Donkey Kong, where you play a poor developer trying to climb the corporate ladder and you have to avoid the chairs a big monkey at the top throws at you.

Nethack

[arivanov]

It is the best comfort game after a really bad day.

You sit down, play and lose. You get up and you are full with that warm fuzzy feeling inside which wispers into your ears that the world is not so perversely against you, because the game has proven that things can be much, much worse.

Re:Nethack

[Anonymous Coward]

You sit down, play and lose. You get up...

You've done it! It's the holy grail of Nethack addicts everywhere! Please tell us how you manage to get up!

Yours faithfully,
Vladimir

P.S. I think you're lying.

Be seeing you...

Adventure for the Atari 2600

[buckhead_buddy]

I didn't realize how relaxing this game was until I played Adventure again on a friend's "retro 2600 game consoles built into a joystick" machines. I knew exactly where to grab the sword, defeat even the red dragon, and find the micro-dot/easter egg without having played it (or even thinking about it) in years. I suspect other games like the Superman game, or Yar's Revengewould trigger the same response, but it's very strange (and perhaps a little scary) how comforting it is for those built in motor memories to kick in again.

Maybe I can see now why my mom is nostalgic over some mundane useless activity like shucking vegetables. Or my dad recalls how great it was to kill wasps. Weird activities from when we were young and not concerned about politics, relationships, or investment portfolios. Maybe I should have learned something else besides how to beat Adventure though. :-/

Cloud

[DyslexicLegume]

http://intihuatani.usc.edu/cloud/

One of the most relaxing games ever.

Here goes...

[Masa]

My comfort games:

• Colin McRae Rally (the first one)
• Gran Turismo 3
• Nethack
• Commander Keen (any one of the series)
• SSX (the first one)

Colin McRae Rally actually has a lot deeper meaning for me than just being a comfort game. I have developed a habit that every christmas I buy some crackers, different sorts of cheese and I dedicate a day just for playing this racing classic. I eat nothing but cheese and crackers and play and I'll have this Zen-like experience. This ritual gives me the peace some people seek form churches or other spiritual christmas activities.

Re:my top five (in no particular order)

[LindseyJ]

1. Alpha Centauri

I must warn you, my scientists have just completed a 1/1/1 Missile Rover prototype, rendering my forces practically invincible.

StarCraft!!!

[XMilkProject]

Can't believe I didn't see this one listed for anyone! Was always one of my favorites, every 6 or 8 months I end up digging up a copy of StarCraft (and some of the addons) and get stuck playing for hours.

In my opinion it must be one of the most balanced games ever made. I always found it much more playable than Warcraft or Ages of Empires... Perhaps becuase of the simple graphics or lack of 'hero' characters, which always seem to just make battles harder to orchestrate.

More Hot Pockets (TM)!

[Dobeln]

Mom! More Hot Pockets!